The Crusader

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To get to our current situation, she backtracks to pioneer America, when a group of women would come to the deceased's house and help with the laying out of the dead. Later, during the Victorian era, there would of ten be an elaborate laying out in the front parlor, with the body on display surrounded by fancy draperies. But as we became a more dispersed society, there wasn't room or time to lay Grandma out in the parlor anymore. We were spreading out, and the funeral moved from the family home to the undertaker's "home.".

"But the public have been willing victims in this," Carlson points out. "There's a lot of superstitious thinking, `If we talk about it, it might happen.' Or, 'I don't want to seem morbid.' I know my grandmother tried to talk to me about her funeral thoughts when I was in my 20s and 1 was very uncomfortable. I said, `Oh Grammy, you're not going to die.' I wouldn't let her talk about it and she didn't insist. That was the sad thing. In hindsight I wish she had insisted."

In 1987, Lisa published her first book, Caringfor Your Own Dead (followed 10 years later by Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act Of Love ). Essentially a funeral "how-to" guide, it was inspired by a series of family deaths during the 1980s, beginning with the suicide of her husband. With two young children and next to nothing in the bank, she was forced to scrutinize every item in the funeral plan, and wound up putting together a homemade version, including transport of the body to the crematory. As she discovered, it wasn't the financial savings that proved most significant.

"That the total cost would now be under $200 had become secondary," she wrote. "I needed to be a part of John's death, as I was of his life. If I had had the money, I would have lost that - given that away - in a moment of grief and confusion."

The book presented detailed information on legal and hygienic requirements in every state, and an argument for getting involved in family funerals. People began calling her for help, not only survivors and self-planners, but also a chapter of the Funeral and Memorial Society of America (FAMSA, recently renamed the Funeral Consumer's Alliance). Carlson began by improving the visibility of the organization. She was profiled in a cover story in U.S. News and World Report headlined "Don't Die Before You Read This". She got mentions in Ann Landers, Dear Abby and appeared twice on Donahue. "After Dear Abby and Ann Landers, we got 30,000 pieces of mail. They had to pull in volunteers to handle it all."

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